


Looking Glass

by cjmarlowe



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M, Time Travel, happy new year 1973, ziggy stardust - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-25
Updated: 2009-07-25
Packaged: 2017-11-12 14:08:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/pseuds/cjmarlowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam wasn't sure if it was the weirdest Idol-related gift he'd ever received, or the best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking Glass

Adam wasn't sure if it was the weirdest Idol-related gift he'd ever received, or the best. It was certainly one of the biggest, if he didn't count cars or life-sized dolls (the less said about the latter, the better). The package was already waiting in the boys' dressing room when he arrived, and even though it had obviously been vetted by security he still untied the knots binding the cloth wrapping with a little extra care. When they finally came free the cloth fell away to reveal a large, ornate wall mirror.

"Someone gave you a mirror?" said Danny, and laughed so hard Sarver had to thump him on the back so he didn't choke on it.

Even Kris was grinning. "You've got to admit," he said. "At least they put some thought into it."

"I think this is antique," said Adam, running a finger around a curlicue on the top edge, his finger snagging for a moment on a bit of worn and twisted metal. "I don't think I can accept this. It's too much."

"Well, it's not like you can give it back," said Matt. "Do you even know who sent it? What are you going to do with it if you don't keep it?"

"I don't know," said Adam, but unlike the others, he wasn't laughing. It was _beautiful_ and _strange_ and he didn't know what to do with this kind of gift, the kind that couldn't be tucked away or donated or forgotten. "Who gives a stranger an antique mirror?"

"Someone who really, really likes you," said Kris, his smile turning soft. "And I don't mean that in the creepy way."

"Unless it came from one of you guys, I'll reserve judgment on that," said Adam. If it did come from one of them - unlikely at best - none of them took the opportunity to speak up. "I'm going to... go find someone to take care of this."

Taking care of it meant taking it onto the bus for him, to be dealt with when he had a chance, but even with the mirror out of his sight, Adam couldn't help thinking about it all evening.

:::

They'd draped the cloth back over the mirror but not retied the cords when they carefully placed it on the bus for Adam. He probably should have just had them pack it up and ship it to his mother's place or something, not put it on the bus of all places, but he still hadn't figured out quite what he _wanted_ with the thing.

Everyone else was asleep when Adam finally pulled the cloth off again and knelt down to look at his dim reflection, still made up from the show even though he'd changed into jeans and a t-shirt. His image was just slightly distorted at the edges, like the mirror had warped over the years, or maybe Adam was just tired. Tired from twenty-some tour dates under his belt and a hundred interviews, dozens of hours in the studios and fans, fans and more fans.

He touched the distorted edges of his reflection and felt a tingling in his fingertips, not unlike a mild electric shock. Not enough for him to jerk back, but enough that his fingertips buzzed with it. He pulled them back slowly, rubbed his thumb and his forefinger together for a moment, then touched his reflection again.

The distortion shimmered, and the longer he kept his fingers there the more out of sync it seemed, until Adam realized he could barely recognize himself in the mirror at all. Either he was more exhausted than he realized, or maybe someone had slipped something into his water bottle back at the venue and it wasn't kicking in till now.

His head started spinning and he felt a wrenching in his gut, and he closed his eyes against it, adding food poisoning to his list of possible culprits. A few moments of deep, even breathing later the dizziness faded and Adam's stomach settled, and everything seemed very still. Even the familiar rocking of the bus stopped. He'd unconsciously pulled his hand away from the mirror when the dizziness hit, but when he reached for it again there was nothing there.

And when he opened his eyes, he wasn't on the bus at all.

_Bad trip_ , he thought, _baaaaad trip_. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking, because this didn't have that kind of a surreal feeling to it, it was neither detached nor intense enough, and his head had finally _stopped_ spinning. He stood up and felt very real shag carpeting beneath his bare feet, saw a very real wall in front of him, heard very real music coming from outside of this room.

He stumbled back a couple of steps as he tried to take it all in.

The room was shadowed and deserted, the barest suggestion of furniture in the corners. A sliver of a moon gave him faint light to see by, but he knew, he _remembered_ , that just a few hours ago when he'd walked from the venue out to the buses it had definitely been nearly full. So not only did he not know where he was, he didn't know when he was either.

Neil always said something like this was going to happen to him eventually, that was just the kind of life he had.

Well, he wasn't going to get anywhere standing in here and staring at the bare walls or staring out the window onto an unfamiliar city, glittering with streetlights and sparklers and a thousand table lamps in a thousand windows. He pulled the door open, as ready as he was ever going to be to face what was on the other side, and was hit by a blast of, "Three... Two... One... Happy New Year!"

"Happy new year?" he said, and was rewarded by a smacking wet kiss on the lips.

"Welcome to 1973!" she said, then pinched his ass and was gone again into the crowd. The loud, glittery, bright, flamboyant crowd. Oh, Adam was _home_.

"This can't be real," he said.

"Of course it's not," someone agreed with him, thick British accent that Adam'd never been able to place. "This is _un_ real, this is _sur_ real, this is so far beyond real that you can't even see real in your rear-view mirror."

Adam grinned weakly and decided the only way to handle this scene was with a drink in hand. He felt a little bit like Alice as he looked at the concoction he pulled off a passing tray, something with not even a passing resemblance to champagne, wondering if taking a sip was going to transform him or his surroundings again.

He was pretty sure he had a dream like this once, in the desert under a new moon with one hand in Brad's hair and the other clutching the remnants of his t-shirt. He walked into the room, a man from the future, a man from another world, and no one batted an eye.

"Hello pretty," said someone on his left, running a finger up his throat to his chin then tilting his head down with it. "And here I thought I _had_ all the pretty boys here already."

He smiled down at her and pushed up his t-shirt a little to rub nervously at his waist, just above the waistline of his most worn, most comfortable jeans. "Last minute change of plans," he said, understatement of his life. "After all, this is the place to be."

Just a hunch, but it was never the wrong thing to say.

"Mick Jagger fucked me in the upstairs bathroom," she said matter-of-factly, dipping her pinky finger in her drink and sucking it off. "I was going to hold out for Bowie next, but I'm always up for another go."

Mick Fucking Jagger fucked her at this party, Jesus Christ, and _Bowie_ was around somewhere, and being in over his head had never felt so good.

"I'll just bet you are," said Adam, and looked at her red, red lipstick and her black, black hair and didn't feel a thing, not for _her_. "Maybe later."

"Hmm," she said, then blatantly eyed him up and down before turning to find her next conquest.

Someone was playing some old Zeppelin in the background, a record with a scratch in it, only it wasn't old Zeppelin, it was _new_ Zeppelin, and wasn't that a mindfuck. Nineteen-fucking-seventy-three.

Adam moved in a bit of a daze, pressed up against person after person, losing all sense of personal space and downing as many drinks as he got his hand on. Fuck being cautious, this wasn't even _real_. He didn't know what it was, but reality as he knew it was long gone.

"What's your sign, baby?"

"Aquarius," he said, grinning at her. "What's yours?"

"Libra," she said. "We were made for each other."

"It could be hot," he agreed, "but it would never work out," and yeah, Adam knew something about that.

"Who needs it to work out?" she said.

Adam laughed but still shook his head. "Better luck next time," he said, raising his glass to her and moving out of one room into the next.

The place was like a mad house, the kind you saw in movies, corridors twisting every which way, a maze of rooms that a person could get lost in. That Adam _was_ lost in. Everywhere he went there were people, happy people, screaming people, people without clothes on, people with clothes that were out of this world, and not a single person looked like they weren't exactly where they were supposed to be.

Not even Adam.

It wasn't across a crowded room that Adam saw him but an empty one, clothing discarded on the floor, curtains askew and an amber table lamp shattered in front of the window. He saw that head of flaming red hair, those narrow shoulders, narrow hips, and he didn't need him to turn around to know just who he'd finally run into.

"Party's that way," he said, thumbing in the direction of the door, and when David Bowie looked at him he smirked.

"The party's wherever I am," he said, and Adam didn't even really _see_ him cross the distance between them, only registered that they were drawing closer and closer together.

As overwhelmed as he felt, as out of time and space, Adam still didn't hesitate. His lips parted and his breath quickened and he reached out for that painted cheek. "I really want to blow you," he said, and was rewarded with a slow and wicked smile. "You won't have to do anything."

He wasn't high, not like just about everyone else in the sprawling house, but he felt like he was, blood rushing in his ears and flooding his cock, a hundred wet dreams coming back to him. There was one thing that transcended everything Adam knew about his type, and that was the _music_.

"I hope you're not just trying to shock me," he said, hand running down the front of his skintight pants. "I am unshockable."

Nobody was unshockable, but Adam's offer had definitely been sincere, and oh so slowly, his eyes never leaving Bowie's, he dropped down to his knees. God, he hadn't done this on his knees in ages, hadn't done this _period_ in a little longer than he liked thanks to the tour. Being a fucking rock star was supposed to get him _more_ ass, not less.

Adam didn't need any more invitation than Bowie's continued presence to unbuckle that glittery belt, to peel those pants down his legs just far enough to get his cock out, musky and hard and curling up towards his stomach the moment it was freed.

Bowie looked down at him almost indulgently, hand in Adam's hair, thumb smudging the makeup at the corner of his eye, and god, he probably had people offering all the time, people who'd never even had a cock in their mouth before. Adam wasn't one of them. Adam was going to make him fucking _fall apart_ it was going to be so good.

He didn't bother to say a word, hand wrapped around the base of that cock and tongue on it without a second thought, up down around and everywhere, lathering him before taking the head into his mouth and sucking gently, a taste of things to come. The hand in his hair tightened and Adam smiled to himself, hand slipping off Bowie's cock to play with his balls, press in just behind to that sensitive spot that made boys hiss and sigh.

He sucked him down further, a little at a time, taking control or maybe being _given_ control. Maybe having earned it. He knew damn well what to do with his tongue, didn't have to guess and struggle and test things out. Every man was different, sure, but there were also surefire tricks and Adam knew _all_ of them, pressing down in just the right spot to earn himself a gasp, sucking with _just_ the right pressure in _just_ the right place, then swallowing him right down to the root and reaching around to grab himself a handful of ass to keep him there.

Adam wasn't the only one who knew all the tricks, and he had just given a clear signal to start a series of quick, desperate thrusts into his throat, for Bowie to let his other hand join the first in Adam's hair and clutch it possessively. He didn't give any kind of warning before he started coming and Adam hadn't been expecting one. He grunted and stopped thrusting and Adam relaxed even more, pulling back just enough to let it flood his mouth.

Then Adam held him there and swallowed hard, taking everything, tonguing him right through until he was soft and spent. And then, still on his knees, he licked him clean before letting him go.

After that there were just the distant strains of _Sister Morphine_ and the harsh sounds of breathing for a long time.

"What's your name?" he said finally, a hitch in his voice that Adam would never, as long as he lived, stop being proud of.

"Adam," he said, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand as he stood up. "Adam Lambert."

He wondered if, thirty-six years later, David Bowie would be flipping channels and distantly remember that name.

"Adam," he repeated, and his lips curled into another sly smile. "I'll see you later, Adam."

He probably wouldn't, not ever, but Adam nodded anyway, and when David Bowie finished fastening his belt and drifted out of the room again, Adam shoved a hand down his pants and got off on just the thought of it, wiping himself on someone's discarded skirt and leaving it behind in a heap, forgotten.

He was adrift again in the labyrinthine house, room to room, corridor to corridor, unsure of what he was doing or what he was going to find. The novelty of the experience was wearing thin and Adam's mind began to spin off into the future, how long he was going to be here, what this _was_ and what was he going to do.

It wasn't a panic, it hadn't even resolved itself into a distinct worry yet, Adam having ridden out enough highs to know not to get ahead of himself, but the idea had planted itself in his brain and it wasn't going anywhere.

He wasn't even looking for his mirror when he found it again, in an empty bedroom, hanging in the middle of a wall and looking more at home there than it ever had in the dressing room or on the tour bus. He turned out the light before approaching it, waiting the few moments it took for his eyes to adjust to the darkness then looking at his reflection. It wavered at the edges, just a faint distortion, and his legs felt suddenly weak with relief.

He took one last look around the room, took a deep breath, and pressed his fingertips to the areas of distortion. Then he closed his eyes and waited. The alcohol in his stomach churned as he felt that deep-seated sensation of _off balance_ again and he bit his lip so hard he tasted blood. Then it was all over. He smelled Danny's aftershave and Matt's socks and felt the gentle sway of the bus as it rolled on down the highway.

His cheek was against the floor, his body sprawled out in what space the lounge allowed, and the mirror was innocently beside him, leaning against the wall with the drop cover in a heap beside it. Through a space where the curtains hadn't been pulled quite closed, moonlight flooded the sofas.

Adam pushed himself up to his knees and groped everything in sight, the carpet and the sofas and the paneling that hid the entertainment unit, everything but the mirror, reassuring himself that it was all really there.

There was no movement anywhere else on the bus, everyone else still asleep.

Hell, maybe Adam had been asleep too, except that he could still hear the music, smell the sweet haze of smoke, taste _Ziggy Stardust_ in his mouth.

It was with that thought that he got up, stumbled exhausted to his bunk, and hoped for the sweetest dreams he'd ever had.

:::

Morning came too quickly, and Adam knew immediately it hadn't all been a dream. If it had been a dream, he wouldn't have to be hiding how _supremely hung over_ he was as they all stumbled around each other on the bus, everyone getting their things together as they pulled into their next hotel for a few more hours of sleep before the day began.

Adam put his sunglasses on over bloodshot eyes and smeared makeup, stuffed his things haphazardly into his bag, and sat back down in the lounge, sprawled across a sofa.

"So have you decided what you want to do with that thing?" said Kris, sitting down next to him, thigh to thigh, and handing over a blessedly large bottle of water as he nodded at the mirror.

"I think I'm going to keep it," he said as he cracked the bottle open. "Once I get a house after the tour's over, I'm going to need something to decorate with."

Kris leaned forward, balancing himself with a hand on Adam's knee, and squinted. "I think the glass is a little warped," he said finally.

"Is it?" said Adam, running his eyes slowly up Kris's reflection in the mirror. "Huh. Well, maybe after the tour we can check that out."


End file.
